Title: When She Cries
Book: III
Chapter: Eight
Chapter Title: Don't Hold Your
Love Over My Head
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: Aye, captain. I hold
no deeds to Gilmore Girls. And I don’t own John Mayer’s Come Back To Bed.
Author’s Note: Um, well hey again. I’m at college now, and
it’s been a hectic 5 weeks. There’s been moving in, classes, fire alarms going
off, my roommate dropped out, then there was the redecorating/rearranging of my
room, and then a birthday party. I’ve been busy. Plus, I have this total
obsession with the band Something Corporate that has been consuming my life. Go
out and buy Leaving Through The Window, and on October 21st,
go buy North.
*
What will this fix?
You know you're not a quick forgive
And I won't sleep through this
I survive on the breath you are finished with
She wasn’t the type of girl who fretted. It was a waste of time, and Lola rather liked that she didn’t have any regrets in her life until this point. And this was going to be the make or break of whether or not she was going to have regrets. She was twenty years old; she didn’t really need her parents’ approval, or even their money. She didn’t even need to tell them. But even she had to admit that she had been raised better than that, which explained why she was walking up the steps to her father’s doorway.
It’d be different if she had been away for a long time, and in that time she had gone through some awful downward spiral. But she had just been a mask around her parents. A sliver of who she really was. But this pregnancy left her exposed. Raw. Open for everyone to see she was truly as horrible as she was rumored to be. Maybe even worse.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like who she was, because in all honestly, she didn’t mind being the vain bitch that she was. It was just that most didn’t like who she was, and somehow she had hid that from her parents. She slipped into roles easily, and it wasn’t that she was hiding out of shame. But because it was fun to encompass what was usually such a small part of your personality. Sometimes you could even surprise people. But now she was thrust into one role, and she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself. Well, crying on Dallas Mariano’s shoulder was not a good way to start. She was quite positive of that.
Lola took off her sunglasses and stepped into the large foyer. “My parents?”
“In the green drawing room,” he answered. “Shall I announce you?”
She shook her head and tugged on a spiral curl. “No, I’ll announce myself.”
“Very well
then,”
Her teeth tugged on her lower lip as she stood there. Okay, this just was not her. She could do this. Lola pushed her blonde hair back and made the familiar steps to the room. This was nothing. Then again, there was nothing like learning something big from gossip. She pushed the door open.
“Hey Daddy,” Lola sat in the first available seat. “Mom.”
“Lola,” both her parents answered simultaneously. Then there was silence. Dreaded silence.
Lola wished she had the urge to vomit. It had worked so well with her Grams.
“I took a
leave of absence from
Her mother snapped attention at that. “Why?”
There was a reason why her and her mother would never get along, and that reason was simple. Lola was that girl. The girl who did what she wanted and didn’t regret it. No one ever asked why she did it, because she’d only give an evasive answer. She was okay with breaking promises and hearts. Her mother simply didn’t have it in her. Everyone had to like Rory, or else it’d bother her.
Lola leaned back in her chair, looking as defiant as her age expected. “I’m pregnant.”
The word hung and echoed throughout the run for several painfully long moments, before her mother blurted out. “Are you sure?”
“No,” her legs stretched, and her ankles crossed. “I thought I’d just see how the announcement would go over. In case I have a future need for it.”
The sad thing was, her mother looked like she wanted to believe that.
“And in this future scenario,” Tristan spoke up, his blue eyes taking on a rather icy hue that was so reminiscent of her own. “Would someone else accompany you? Perhaps, a male somebody?”
“I don’t think that’d be prudent.” Lola met his gaze dead-on, and you could practically see the icicles forming between them. And people didn’t believe her when she said she was her father’s daughter.
Rory tore her shocked gaze off of her daughter and onto her ex-husband, and her eyes narrowed in silent accusation. He knew more than she did.
“You wouldn’t,” her father replied in a tone similar to that she had used many times herself. “Would you?”
Well, that was one less thing to worry about. She supposed.
*
Lola had gone up to her room after that rather shocking announcement. Rory was learning over and over again how much like her daughter this behavior was. Do something radical, and then leave before the consequences hit. Why should she have to deal it? When she was younger and this would happen, she always had the other parent’s house to escape too. Everyone picked up the mess, and swept it under the rug. After all, they were sure that she didn’t mean it. But Rory wasn’t so sure anymore.
Then there was the matter of her ex-husband, and whatever had passed between him and Lola during that conversation. It was something that seemed like only the two of them could understand. Rory always seemed excluded from these moments. She hated that.
Maybe now was the time to fix that. Now that she and Tristan were alone in the room, and just staring off into space.
“What was that about?”
Tristan looked over at her. She recognized that look, he was pissed, but he wasn’t about to show it. “You didn’t hear?”
“I heard what she said,” Rory told him. Tristan made her so easily testy. She didn’t like herself like this. It was one of the reasons for the divorce. “What were you saying?”
“Would you like a printed transcript of the conversation?” And so that was where their daughter had picked up that tone of voice from.
“You know something I don’t,” she pushed on, ignoring all the sarcastic tones in his voice. It was what she had to do to be able to get through a single conversation with him. “I’d appreciate it if you filled me in.”
He sighed, his blue eyes looking suddenly tired. “I don’t know anything more than what you can see for yourself.”
Rory didn’t like what he said, or the way he said it. “Meaning?”
“Meaning you only see Lola the way you want to see her,” Tristan explained, tugging on the ends of his graying blonde hair. “Not for what she is.”
“And what is she?”
Tristan sighed, “You really can’t tell by now?”
Rory combed a frustrated hand through her hair, tugging on the ends as she reached them. This conversation, like many others that they had, was getting her absolutely no where. Maybe it was time she stopped trying to get answers out of him, and go to the source. It was ridiculous, this fear she seemed to have of talking to her own daughter, and it had to stop. A conversation between the two of them was long past due.
*
When Lola was younger, there was a keyboard in her room, up against the north wall, below the window. When she was younger, and particularly obsessed with playing the piano, the keyboard in her room had been rather a necessity. This obsession phase had been when she was younger, so walking through the dark halls at night when she felt like playing, hadn’t been an option. Not without waking up her father to escort back and forth, and part of the time her father was out of town. So the arrangement wasn’t all too good, so they had set up a keyboard in her room. At first, she had protested citing that it wasn’t a real piano, but she soon got use to it. However, as she had gotten older she grew less passionate about the instrument, along with pretty much everything else, so the keyboard had been replaced by a love seat. Right now, Lola wished she still had that keyboard in her room.
It didn’t matter that she rarely played any more. It didn’t matter that she felt the need to play it for most of the day. The piano was something she always went back to. Whenever she needed to be centered, or collect herself, all she had to do is sit down and play. It would make her herself again. Maybe that’s why she rarely played as she had grown older, because she didn’t like admitting to anyone, much less her self, that she needed to be collected. That she needed to be centered.
So, right now, she had to settle for listening to someone else playing the piano, as she sat at her vanity, touching up her nails. This was always her alternate plan for centering herself. So she listened, as she brushed the polish against her nail as the piano mixed with guitars and drums as bitter words gilded over them.
She had just finished her pinky nail when her mother entered the room without knocking. That was Lola’s first indication that something about her mother had changed. Too bad that didn’t change anything about her.
“Mother,” Lola greeted her as she placed her fingers underneath the lamp.
“Lorelai,” Rory sat down in the director’s chair that was placed next to her vanity.
It was the name that got her attention. Her mother didn’t use the name; neither did her grandmother when talking to Rory. It was a weird thing, but it was one of those things that grabbed your attention when it happened.
Lola pulled her fingers out from underneath the lamp; she hadn’t used much nail polish so they were dry already, and turned to face her mother. “Yes?”
Rory’s mouth opened to form words, but she shut it, treading carefully. “What are you going to do?”
Her blue eyes widened with innocence, “Right now?”
It was an act. Everything about Lola was an act. “Right now, nine months from now…”
“You mean five and a half months from now,” she was in full armor now; her gaze met her mother’s dead on.
She sighed, which was a lot better than what she wanted to do— which was to strangle her daughter. “Do you have a plan?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Lola told her, as she stood up. “I’ve always managed.”
The rest of the sentence was left hanging in the air, leaving Rory to wonder whether she meant that she’d always managed without her, or without a plan. Most likely the former.
Rory tried again, “Lola…”
Lola stopped her, “We’re going to be late for dinner at the Mariano’s, mother. Just save it.”
It was more likely that she wanted her to throw the entire conversation away, but Rory still backed down. As she always did.
To Be Continued…